Red
by Ruby Casablanca
Summary: Rose didn't know that it wasn't his color. It hadn't been for a very, very long time. Rated T for safety and mild graphic violence. Please read and review.


Red

Rose had been wandering through the TARDIS Closet for about an hour now, still searching for something decent to wear. The Doctor was probably getting really impatient waiting down there in the consol room, but she didn't care. She was NOT going badly dressed like she did the last go round. How was it that the Doctor so conveniently managed to forget that he had landed them right in the middle of Medieval England, leaving her to explain why they were dressed as 'heathens'. God forbid she shows her ankles to thirteenth century knights ever again…

_What exactly did you wear to the King of Poosh's birthday party? _She wondered as she skimmed through racks of ridiculous costumes.

In her hour of pointless searching, she had come across some very strange, very ridiculous things. She remembered seeing a patchwork coat whose rainbow colors made her want to tear her eyes; that or return it to the clown it came from. She recalled the various musty suits she had pulled out and one very long, _long,_ _**long**_ scarf she had to detangle herself out of for twenty minutes. She also remembered knocking down a whole stand of hats and knick knacks, including one very old kitty cat pin. That one made her laugh, making her wonder where the Doctor had found such wonderful things to wear.

The black leather jacket that she found tossed on the floor in the back made her sad. It was still warm, the Dalek atoms still lightly dusted over it, and it smelled of him, the past him. She had such fond memories of him in this jacket, the version of him that had huge ears and a really loud personality but would never show it except in private. He had such a sarcastic sense of humor, and in a way, he felt like the dad she never had, his patronizing ways a comfort in her unstable life.

Hanging it back up gingerly, she made her way back to the front of the room, sighing in discontent. She hadn't been able to find one decent thing to wear in the entire TARDIS. Well then, the Doctor was just going to have to pop back to the twenty-first century so she could do some shopping, both for her and him. He could use some new, decent clothes after the show she'd seen in there.

Turning to go, she suddenly hesitated on the top step. Something caught her attention out of the corner of her eye, something she hadn't noticed before now. Pushing heavy coats aside, she pulled out the mysterious item, a floor length, crimson robe with beautiful golden detail. Gasping, she admired the robe's great beauty, the stitching intricately designed and woven down and across the edges, the glittering ones across the back forming what seemed to look like clock gears.

That was strange. Who would choose to design clock gears, and complexly detailed ones such as those? They looped and laced in between each other, creating a sort of flow to the circular shapes. The fabric itself held a great weight, feeling as if the deep red fabric was made out of velvet or thick satin. It was luxurious, rich by far in many more ways than one, and she wondered where the Doctor had come across this rare beauty. It was probably used for some important ceremony somewhere on some far off planet the Doctor had saved…

But, despite its beauty, it was also very old, the robe feeling very worn and ancient. She could see the deep creases that had been imbedded in it, and she noted that it was deeply stained around the bottom edges from something long ago. It smelled of ash, but of something else too, something peculiar. She suddenly felt very strange and held the cloak away from her, eyeing it carefully.

What was this thing?

She opened it up, the body huge was obviously built for a male structure, but as she unfolded it further, she heard faint whispers all around her, a slight breeze flowing through the room. Now intrigued, she slipped the robe onto her shoulders, trying to pull the excess in, only to have it fit automatically and perfectly to her form. It felt smooth, the fabric soft and comfortable, but most of all, she felt power. Maybe this is what she would wear to the party…

Twirling to the mirror, she took a good long look at herself. It wasn't exactly her color, but it was stunning none the less.

Rose was about to go show the Doctor, her spirits lifted, when she was knocked to the ground, her mind filled with a stabbing pain. She went blind, her eyes stinging with something invisible. Her ears rang with the blood curdling screams of women, children, and men of all ages. She could hear their cries over the military orders given, and they were the worst sounds she had ever heard, the sounds of death. She could smell fire, and that one peculiar smell of ash wasn't ash at all, but the scent of burning flesh. She felt sick, bile rising in the back of her throat, but it kept going on around her.

Through her burning eyes she could see peaks of what was occurring, people screaming, running for their lives before they burned alive or got swallowed by the crumbling red soils below. She saw the sky explode with something fiercely bright, something large shattered in the distance, and more people screamed, the sounds of death echoing through her ears. She was sobbing uncontrollably, screaming, begging for it to stop, for the nightmare to end.

In a desperate attempt to escape, Rose threw the robe off her shoulders and shoved it far away from her, backing herself up against the mirror. She stared at the robe with great fear, wondering what sort of evil lived inside it. She curled herself up into a ball and rocked herself back and forth, trying to make the visions go away.

She heard footsteps a moment later and the Doctor was by her side in moments, cradling her in his arms and stroking her hair, murmuring words of comfort. All she did was sob into him, and he let her for a good five minutes before he asked the inevitable.

"Rose, what happened? If you don't want to go to the party, we don't have to go." He tried to smile, but she couldn't even muster a good straight face her lip was quivering so badly. All she could do was point to the wadded up robe strewn across the hall.

He took one good look at it and frowned a frown so deep and so angry that it scared her half to death. He glared across at it for a few moments, his eyes hardened and lost somewhere else, before he snapped out of his reverie. It was clear to Rose that the Doctor was livid, she just wanted to know why.

"Rose." He stated through tightly clenched teeth. "Where did you get that robe?"

He got up in a matter of seconds and held the robe away from himself at arm's length, sneering at it, wishing it would go away already. He hung it up forcefully and shoved it into the back of the wardrobe, concealing it behind everything else. When he had finished, he stood broodingly over Rose, his expression demanding an answer.

"I needed something to wear for the party- and I saw that and-and I thought…"

"And you thought, what?" he exploded. "That you'd try on personal things that didn't belong to you! You know, Rose Tyler, that there are very few rules that I actually maintain and hold serious and one of them is DON'T GO SNOOPING THROUGH MY PERSONAL THINGS!"

"Bu-but you were the one who said I could…"

Rose was choking on her words, breaking down again at the terribly mortifying experience of the robe. If that thing was the Doctor's, then she wondered what possessed him to keep it.

The Doctor looked away from Rose, too angry to speak. He didn't know why he had exploded on her like that, but he couldn't stomach the sight her right now. Maybe it was because she still smelled like it, like that old robe. Maybe it was because he was angry he couldn't spare her from the sights she'd seen. Either way, it was his fault.

"Go to bed Rose. You're in no condition for a party, and I've lost the urge to dance."

He left her in the dressing room, making his way back to the consol room. He didn't much know what he was doing, harshly shoving down levers and aggressively pulling and twisting knobs until the old girl let out a whine of protest, her motors squealing. He threw his arms down in frustration, throwing himself onto the captain's seat.

Why did this always happen to him on the good days?

* * *

><p>A few hours had passed since Rose had seen the Doctor, and she was afraid of seeing him again. She didn't want to go down and tell him she'd been having nightmares of people burning alive, that horrible stench still ticking her nose. She didn't want to have to see him in his angriest state, but she was so alone, and that to her was terrifying.<p>

Creeping down the metal stairs, she found the Doctor reclining on the chairs across from her, his back turned. Though she tried her best to be quiet, he could still hear her, his alien hearing impeccable.

"Rose?"

He sounded back to normal, but she was still a tad apprehensive.

"Sorry. Didn't mean to intrude. I'll leave if you want…"

She turned to go, but he called her back.

"Come here Rose. Come and sit with me for a minute."

And so she did, taking a seat next to the Doctor on the chair next to his, acting as if nothing had happened. He looked far off, a tad bit spacey, and very, very old, his sad eyes reflecting his years more than they should've.

"That robe…" he started, hesitating for a moment as if to find the right words to say. "That robe was mine, mine from my days on the High Gallifreyan Council. I didn't even know I still had it, but there it was, the damned thing, right on your shoulders unfortunately."

He sighed, coming back down to reality and looked at her with such pain that she felt like crying all over again.

"I'm sorry. I'm so, so sorry Rose. You never should've seen that."

"How'd you know that I'd seen things?"

"That robe's alive, just like everything else Gallifrey made, even the clothing had a life. Of course, clothing isn't too alive…It just hold things in for a very long time. It remembers things it's seen, places it's been, the actions its master had done…"

"So, what I saw…those were memories?"

"Yes. Memories of the Time War. My memories of the Time War to be exact."

"That was you? You saw that? Those were your memories?"

He nodded slowly in response.

"The robe did have my name on it…not in English, but in Gallifreyan. Probably didn't recognize it with all the squiggles and circles and such. After all, the language doesn't translate so all it looks like is a bunch of clock gears to most people…"

Rose was astonished. Why hadn't he said anything before? Why had he kept all this pain bottled up inside?

"Doctor, what I saw, what I heard, what I smelled…" She shuddered at that and he pulled her in closer, his arms instinctively wrapping around her waist. "It was terrible. All that death, all that suffering... Why would you keep that to yourself?"

"Because I didn't want anyone else, anyone innocent like you, to be subjected to something that terrible. But, I failed. I have corrupted you body and soul, Rose Tyler, and I am so very sorry."

"It's alright Doctor, I'll be fine…" She lied through her teeth. She was the farthest thing from fine.

"Oh, Rose Tyler, please forgive me…"

"I said I'm fine Doctor, really…"

But he just smiled at her, and before she could ask why, he had his fingers on her temples, opening her mind to the psychic channel. He had to wipe away the things she had seen, what she had experienced was never supposed to be seen by human eyes. He buried the memories so far deep that she could never ever in a million lifetimes find them; they were lost to her forever and she collapsed into his arms.

He carried her up and into her room, laying her down and shutting the doors behind him. She was sleeping peacefully tonight, the first time in days, and she needed it. He didn't want to keep her up with his nightmares in her mind. He loved her too much to watch her suffer that for him.

Walking down the hall and back towards the consol room, he came up with a definite conclusion. He would find a way to destroy that robe somehow, even if it took him the rest of his life to do so.

* * *

><p>Rose woke up feeling the most invigorated she had felt in a long time. She didn't know how she'd gotten into her fluffy pajamas or into her bed last night, her memories cutting off right after she decided to leave the closet. She guessed it must've been a real boring party for her to have fallen asleep so fast.<p>

Skipping off down the stairs, she found the Doctor hunched over the control panel, mindlessly staring at the buttons in front of him.

"'Ello? Earth to the Doctor." She teased, her tongue poking out between her teeth in its signature way.

It took him a minute to register her presence in which he responded with an automatic smile.

"Sleep well then?" he asked, turning the knob to his right.

"Yeah, slept great! That must'a had been a real snoozer eh? I was out like a light!"

"Yeah, it was a real bore. Almost fell over on the King me-self…" he chattered away, not entirely there.

"You alright Doctor? You seem a bit more off than usual."

"Me? Yeah. I'm fine. Always fine." He finished that with a superfluous smile, pulling the lever soundly down, the TARDIS roaring to life, taking them off to their next adventure.

"Alright…well, at least tell me where we're going this time so I can pop into the closet and get something decent for a change."

"NO!" the Doctor roared, causing Rose to turn, startled at his rash reaction. "I mean, you look fine. You don't need to change. We're just popping back to London for a while. No need for new clothes…"

"Okay then…"

She plopped back down next to him, spinning around in her seat while the TARDIS jerked back and forth as it tried to land steadily. She was analyzing him really; for some strange reason, she wanted to know what his color was. She had always thought it to be brown, but now she had a different idea. After a few moments, the color finally came to her, as if from out of a dream.

"You know Doctor; you should wear red… I think you'd look good in red."

The Doctor bolted straight up in his seat, his focus adverting from the scanners and landing right on her face.

"What did you say?"

"Nothing. Just that red suits you. That's all…"

She sauntered off, a slight give to her step where she had bruised herself earlier and didn't remember how, and left the TARDIS, probably to hug her mum or Mickey, or even to see her mates. He didn't know what she was up to, but she needed to get out of that box, that was for sure.

Red, he scoffed, totally disbelieving what he had heard. She had told him he should wear red. He, the man who was responsible for the death of millions, billions, should wear red, the color of their blood. He should, in her mind, put that cursed robe back on, the one that was drenched in the blood of his own species not too long ago, and walk around in it because the color 'suited him'.

And, perhaps she was right. He was a miserable man, one that didn't deserve to live in the eyes of many civilizations across the universe, and the red would show the extent of his sins, but he would never do it. He had put the past behind him a long time ago, and he had no intention of digging it back up any time soon.

He had worn the color red in enough ways over his lifetimes. He didn't need to start again.


End file.
